A new £5million National Museum of the Royal Navy is to be opened in Devon.

The facility will be based around former nuclear submarine HMS Courageous in Devonport. Work on the project is due to begin later this year.

It will be based on an existing collection which will move to a revamped and expanded Bonaventure House, also known as Officers’ Terrace, in the South Yard.

That will allow the public to see thousands of objects and artefacts held in Plymouth - 10,000 glass negatives of the pre-WW1 base, ships and women at work in the yard; a sizeable collection of ship models; figureheads; and a lot of relics from the ‘end of empire’ - items brought back from former colonies as Britain pulled out after WW2 tended to end up in Devonport.

In addition, submarine HMS Courageous will move to a nearby dock, with a neighbouring building turned into a museum telling the Royal Navy’s Cold War story.

“Plymouth’s naval history has not been particularly well served over the years,” said the National Museum’s Director General Prof Dominic Tweddle. “We can do better, so let’s do it.

“Courageous is a fantastic attraction, wonderfully restored and preserved, but at the moment she’s difficult to see.

“If all goes well, we will have a museum which tells the story of the Royal Navy and how it relates to Plymouth, as well as the Navy’s story since 1945.”

(Image: MOD)

The first work is due to begin on the site later this year with the whole project taking seven to 10 years to complete.

Further east at Yeovilton, the hangars currently occupied by the Fleet Air Arm Museum are reaching the end of their lives – but a 12-year-plan is in hand to completely rebuild museum, overhaul the galleries, and display upwards of 100 classic aircraft from more than a century of British naval aviation.